A severely malnourished 5-year-old Spring boy whose father and stepmother were arrested this weekend on felony charges was not emaciated when he was visited, interviewed and photographed by child welfare workers earlier this year, officials said.

When social workers sought to further investigate abuse and neglect allegations, the parents retained an attorney and refused to cooperate further, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Estella Olguin said Monday.

"And then we were told that the father and the boy had moved out of state," she said, adding that officials were never given a location.

That's why the discovery of the skinny-to-the-bones boy five weeks later has shocked not only the neighbors and the larger Houston community – but social workers.

CPS officials saw the child on Feb. 20.

"He was not in this state of malnourishment," Olguin said, citing pictures taken at that time. "Now we know they never moved. ... We still had more investigating to do on that case."

Bradley Bleimeyer, 24, and 33-year-old Tami Bleimeyer, are charged with child endangerment. A criminal complaint accuses them of conduct that placed the child "in imminent danger of physical impairment, namely, by failing to provide food."

Photographs provided by authorities show an extremely thin child with reddish blond hair with what appear to be abrasions and bruises on his back. He is wearing a soiled diaper.

Law enforcement intervened on Thursday while responding to a disturbance call at a home in the 21500 block of Castlemont Lane. When deputies arrived, they saw a 16-year-old boy and a man later identified as Bradley Bleimeyer fighting in the front yard, according to Assistant Chief Deputy Mark Herman with the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office.

Officers were told that the 5-year-old boy was being forced to live in a closet under a stairway inside the house. They also were informed that the younger child's stepmother, later identified as Tami Bleimeyer, had left the home with the boy before deputies arrived.

Believing the youngster to be in danger, deputies searched for the stepmother. They tracked her down at a motel in Humble on Friday when they spotted Bradley Bleimeyer leaving one of the rooms. When they went inside, deputies found Tami Bleimeyer and the boy, Herman said.

The child "was in bad shape, bleeding from his back," Herman said, and was taken to a Houston hospital. The parents were arrested early Saturday morning.

At some point, law enforcement officials released three other children to relatives, the assistant chief confirmed.

Olguin said that Tami Bleimeyer has six children - the 16-year-old boy that had been fighting with Bradley Bleimeyer as well as youngsters ages 14, 13, 7, another 5-year-old boy and a 1-year-old girl.

The fate of those children will be addressed in court on Tuesday when CPS officials request custody of the hospitalized boy.

A preliminary report from a doctor could lead to more serious charges, potentially felony injury to a child, Herman said.

"Someone caused these injuries to him. That's what the doctors feel," he said.

Herman added that deputies are familiar with the address because of previous disturbance calls "but nothing that led us into the house."

CPS also has history with Tami Bleimeyer, who had been investigated "before she and Bradley got together," Olguin said. "We'll let the court know we need to see the other children and assess whether they're safe - not only to see if they are victims but to see what they can tell us about what was happening in the home."

Tami Bleimeyer was released on $2,000 bail on Sunday. She is believed to be trying to retrieve her children, Olguin said.

Bradley Bleimeyer remains in the Harris County jail. Saturday's arrest was his third in Harris County in as many months, court records show. In mid-January, he was charged with misdemeanor theft of a battery. In early February, he was charged with burglary of a habitation, a felony, for allegedly kicking down the door of a house two blocks down. He encountered the homeowner's son - a friend of one of his children - who pointed a handgun at Bleimeyer and caused him to flee, court records state. He was released on $20,000 bail in that incident.

His partner appears to have taken his name as his common-law wife.

Tami Elizabeth Frank purchased the 2,300-square-foot, two-story house on Castlemont in September 2009 for $98,000. The two-toned brown structure is in far north Harris County's Bridgestone subdivision.

Neighbors reported incidents of yelling, loud music and loose dogs attributed to the household over the years - and never saw more than two or three children.

On Monday, the unkempt front yard was littered with trash including several empty pouches of chewing tobacco. An overgrown back yard with vegetation that impeded access to play equipment could be seen through slats in the fence.

The house is one block away from Klein Independent School District's Roth Elementary.

Parked end to end with a white SUV, the bed of a pickup in the driveway hung over the sidewalk - frustrating crossing guards as they directed and supervised children walking from school late Monday.

Christy Moszkowicz, the mother of two sons, couldn't believe there had been a starving child across the street.

"I saw the pictures on the computer. I couldn't even look at them. I started crying. You could see his little ribs," she said.

The recovering boy's biological mother, who told CPS investigators that "she had not been allowed contact," is now at the hospital with him, Olguin said. The child turned 5 in February. He has a long road ahead physically and psychologically that can't be fixed simply by feasting. He will have to be reintroduced to food slowly to avoid going into shock or even cardiac arrest, Olguin said. And, there has been an outpouring of support for the child.

"We've gotten so many calls from all over from people who want to help this boy," she added.

A message left late Monday for the parents' family lawyer, who was identified by Olguin as Julie Ketterman, was not returned immediately.